Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. Wi-Fi or WiFi (e.g., IEEE 802.11) is a technology that allows electronic devices to connect to a wireless local area network (WLAN). A WiFi network may include an access point (AP) that may communicate with one or more other electronic devices (e.g., computers, cellular phones, tablets, laptops, televisions, wireless devices, mobile devices, “smart” devices, etc.), which can be referred to as stations (STAs). The AP may be coupled to a network, such as the Internet, and may enable one or more STAs to communicate via the network or with other STAs coupled to the AP.
Many wireless networks utilize carrier-sense multiple access with collision detection (CSMA/CD) to share a wireless medium. With CSMA/CD, before transmission of data on the wireless medium, a device may listen to the medium to determine whether another transmission is in progress. If the medium is idle, the device may attempt a transmission. The device may also listen to the medium during its transmission, so as to detect whether the data was successfully transmitted, or if perhaps a collision with a transmission of another device occurred. When a collision is detected, the device may wait for a period of time and then re-attempt the transmission. The use of CSMA/CD allows for a single device to utilize a particular channel (such as a spatial or frequency division multiplexing channel) of a wireless network.
Users continue to demand greater and greater capacity from their wireless networks. For example, video streaming over wireless networks is becoming more common. Video teleconferencing may also place additional capacity demands on wireless networks. In order to satisfy the bandwidth and capacity requirements users require, improvements in the ability of a wireless medium to carry larger and larger amounts of data are needed.